


Entanglements

by spectrifical



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: F/M, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Matchmaking, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-13
Updated: 2014-01-13
Packaged: 2018-01-08 13:25:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1133174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spectrifical/pseuds/spectrifical
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leonard hasn’t been in the friend making business for years, but for Jim he’s willing to try.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Entanglements

“You ready to get off this rock yet, Bones?” Jim asks from somewhere behind Leonard’s left ear. They wade through a particularly interesting field, at least according to Leonard’s tricorder and the preliminary reports from Starfleet. Not that you could guess the fact from Jim’s attitude. It may require all of Leonard’s skills to ignore Jim, but he manages to keep the bulk of his attention on the readouts despite the handicap. And then Jim breaks bits of the alien grass off by the tall stalks they stand on, causing thoughts of alien allergens to flit through the back of Leonard’s mind.

“You finally give me an away mission I want—one in which I neither complain about the use of the transporter nor gripe about your many abuses of power in getting me onto the transporter pad in the first place—and now you’re trying to rush me through it?” Leonard spins around in time to catch Jim ridding himself of the evidence of his misdeed. Leonard _had_ exacted a promise from him not two hours ago that included a no-touching the planet clause. Leonard's surprised he lasted this long. “I cannot believe you.”

Then he turns back and continues to scan the area, spleen vented and feeling a little better for it. Starfleet wants a medical opinion regarding this planet’s flora. Deep space scans showed some unique properties and the initial scans from the _Enterprise_ backed that up. And Leonard intends to give them that medical opinion even though he still can’t tell what those unique properties might be. Maybe if Jim hadn’t forced him to keep half an ear on asinine conversations for the last hour he’d be less in the dark. Botany isn’t his specialty, but when Leonard puts his name on something he wants to be thorough, and while he trusts Doctor Velazquez—her specialty is plants after all—he also needs to see this stuff for himself for his own comfort.

If Jim will let him anyway.

“And stop desecrating this planet,” Leonard adds. “It’s all well and good Spock’s given up trying to reach you, but he’ll still read me the riot act out of some misguided yet flawlessly logical belief that he might reach you through me. Why he thinks that might be the case is beyond my comprehension. Between you and me, I think it’s that flawless logic holding him back. Keeps a man from seeing common sense.” He pastes on his most obnoxious shit-eating grin, the one sure to get Jim’s dander up every time even though he can only hear the effect it has on Leonard’s voice from where he's standing. “You’re not that kind of guy after all. Recklessly unreachable and congenitally unreasonable maybe. But what can I say? You’re both stubborner than—”

The tricorder beeps at him, forcing his attention back to the task at hand, not that the lack of an enraptured audience stops Jim from driving down a whole new avenue of grievances.

“Turnabout’s fair play, Bones,” Jim says, chewing on a new piece of grass that garbles his speech. “Not like the guy expends any special effort listening to me. Ever. I can’t even get a rematch out of him.”

“Like I said, stubborner—” Leonard says, unable to help himself, voice distant until he fully comprehends Jim’s words and loses interest in the sea of grass surrounding them.

“Are you talking about that game of chess you played with him months ago? You won that match, Jim. Why would you want—? Oh. _Oh._ You cheated. Of course you did. And now Spock won’t hang out with you. Can’t say I blame him. Almost threw you over myself after the Great Travesty of 2256. Think I should try to bond with him over it? Maybe start a support group?"

Jim widens his stance, crosses his arms. “I can’t live in a world where you’re better than me at basketball, man,” he says, shaking his head with false repentance. “I just can’t do it.”

“Right. You don’t seem to have a problem with the fact that I’m a stronger swimmer, can box better, and will beat the pants off of you at long-distance running all days ending in –y, but the one game I do care about and you can’t lose. You’re a piece of work, Jim Kirk.”

Jim shrugs. “I don't care about swimming or boxing...? And I’ll hand your ass back to you in sprints, so it all evens out there.”

“Charming,” Leonard says, fiddling with his tricorder, now only pretending he’s doing work Starfleet would be proud of. “And you wonder why Spock won’t give you the time of day.”

“I’m too busy to worry about that. Captain’s work, etc. etc.”

Leonard’s eyebrows jump in disbelief as he congratulates himself on not pointing out that if what Jim’s doing now isn’t worrying, he’ll need to get hold of a dictionary and educate himself because he doesn't know the meaning of the word. “Is that why my down time’s been so relaxing? I didn’t realize the stripes were powerful enough to keep you out of my hair. Would’ve gotten ‘em for you myself if I’d’ve known.”

“Ha,” Jim says, bridging the distance between them to push at Leonard’s back and swing an arm around his neck. “But seriously, Bones, it’s been a nightmare. I’m sorry if—”

Leonard dislodges Jim with a shove. “Don’t sweat it, kid. We’re all still getting our sea legs. Space legs? Things’ll calm down.”

“Sure. Uh, Bones?” Jim says, just oddly enough that Leonard looks up, following the long stretch of Jim’s shadow until his head tilts skyward and he sees what Jim’s looking at. Jim fishes for his communicator.

“Hey, Scotty?” Jim says once he finds the thing. “I got a weird cloud formation down here. You getting any readings on it?”

After a moment’s pause, Scott answers, jovial as anything, “Oh, aye. ‘tis a bit unusual, but shouldn’t affect transport capabilities.”

Jim looks at Leonard, projecting a calm façade that contrasts sharply with Leonard’s burgeoning nervousness. “You done here, Bones?” he asks.

Leonard isn’t, not by a long shot. He only just scratched the surface of what’s supposed to be here, but the crew’s safety is more important than the incomplete review he’ll have to file. Those clouds—or whatever—look nasty, a sickly purple-gray that glows dully against the otherwise pale and uniform sky behind it. If Jim’s willing to exercise restraint for once, Leonard will happily comply. “I’m done.”

Jim nods. “Okay. Scotty, we’re in two groups about a mile apart. You’re gonna beam back Lieutenant Yi and Doctor Velazquez first and then grab Doctor McCoy and myself in a second pass. No fancy tricks today.”

“O’ course not, sir. Wouldn’t dream of it.”

While they wait for a call back from Scotty, Jim starts speaking. “Hey, what’dya say we get—”

“Ready for transport, Captain.”

Jim sighs. “Never mind.” He activates his comm. “Energize, Mr. Scott.”

===

The captain—and Leonard has a hard time thinking of this man as _the_ captain, he’s certainly not _Leonard’s_ captain—brings him to his hastily assembled guest quarters, more of a shoebox than proper living space in his opinion, shows him in with ironic good humor, like he realizes just how unimpressive this place is and regrets bringing him here. Or perhaps Leonard is projecting.

“It’s not much, I’m afraid,” Captain Kirk says, inviting Leonard to share in a joke Leonard just doesn’t get. Kirk behaves as though this sort of thing happens all the time, that he’s spent his career escorting strange visitors from distance universes to cramped accommodations. And maybe he has. Kirk is ten years Jim’s senior, ten years in another version of Leonard’s future on a mission to the same planet for the same reason with the same away team. Leonard can’t think about it too hard without getting a migraine. How did he jump universes _and_ time? Just doesn’t seem right. And Leonard’s still not sure he believes this is the future at all. The _Enterprise_ looks thirty years out of date at least, as blocky and colorful as children’s toys, nothing at all like the sleek and elegant ship Leonard knows and tolerates back home. And if this is what’s in store for them, this nonchalant attitude toward weirdness, Leonard’s not sure he wants it. They just had a transporter malfunction. Who stays calm about that? Panic roots around in his diaphragm, sending all of the best parts of him scurrying for cover. He refuses to put words to it though, when Kirk smiles so warmly at him, the solicitous concern there enough to render Leonard voiceless. He averts his eyes before he can get too close a look at that understanding.

“I do recognize this must be difficult for you,” Kirk continues when Leonard gives him nothing, not even proper eye contact beyond the brief slip that allowed Leonard to catalog the unfamiliar hazel irises. The differences, big and small, disconcert him. Leonard suspects he now understands how Ambassador Spock feels on a regular basis. This might even be the ambassador’s home universe or one so similar as to be indistinguishable. The Spock here bears eerie similarities to his old counterpart and Kirk matches the description Jim gave him when he forced Jim to spill the details of that mind meld after the _Narada_. Leonard had called it routine medical questioning after a trying ordeal. Jim just called it plain curiosity and blamed the psychologist in him. Jim had been wrong there; the best friend angle played the greater role in that instance. Not that Leonard would ever say as much.

"You care very much for your Jim, don't you?" Kirk asks. Despite the passive delivery, gentle and oblique, it’s not a question. His cadence is different, the bluntness strange, but Leonard appreciates the sensitivity and recognizes it for what it is. He’d never equated the man with the concept before. Will Jim grow into such a person? Or have their paths diverged too much?

All the same, it catches Leonard out, too, reminds him of the time his mother caught him pouring a glass of sweet tea he was too young to mess with that he ended up spilling across the floor. He can only nod his confirmation in the face of Kirk’s knowing openness. Jim’s emotional acuity registers in the negative digits and he takes avoiding conversations about feelings seriously, so Leonard's strategies have no place in approaching this version of Jim. Jim’s always been the younger man his life, never the older and certainly not the wiser.

Kirk speaks smoothly as though Leonard’s awkward rudeness is nothing, easily ignored. "I can see it when you look at me. Or rather when you avoid looking at me too closely. He's lucky to have you in his life." It sounds a lot like Kirk considers himself lucky, too, and that piques Leonard’s interest like nothing in this universe has yet managed.

Ambassador Spock’s grand destiny for Jim looms large in Leonard’s memory, used to keep him up some nights because it never included him. For the first time the harshness of that knowledge doesn’t burn coldly in Leonard’s mind. If this Jim Kirk has this much affection for Leonard despite knowing nothing about him except his name, McCoy can't be in too bad a shape. Leonard finds it heartening.

"Spock'll get your McCoy back," Leonard says awkwardly. He doesn’t have a better response for Kirk. Yes, he cares. That’s what he does. And maybe Jim is lucky, but only as lucky as Leonard. "Which Spock, though..."

Kirk laughs, pleasing to Leonard’s ear. Jim doesn’t laugh much, still too busy proving himself a capable leader. "I have no doubt our Spocks will figure it out at exactly the same time. It is only logical after all."

It hits Leonard then that he's met three versions of Spock now. God. Knowing two of them is more than enough. Kirk's happiness dims a little, morphs into a pensive curiosity. He wonders what Kirk sees on his features, whether his disapproval reads as easily to Kirk as it does to Jim.

"I have to return to the bridge, but I'd like to have dinner with you,” Kirk says as though nothing happened, “if I may. Get to know you better.” It shares the confident delivery of Jim’s best picks up back during the Academy, but Leonard would bet dollars to donuts that that’s not happening here. "It's not often I get to meet a younger Leonard McCoy from a different universe after all. Bet you have some stories to tell."

“I'd like nothing more, Captain," Leonard says with a cordial bob of his head. “Might even have a few you haven’t heard ten times over already.”

"Doctor, there is no version of you in the multiverse who should call me by my rank with anything but impetuousness in mind. It's Jim, please, or nothing at all. I’ll develop an ego otherwise."

"Alright, Jim," Leonard says, name bouncing strangely off his tongue. Leonard’s called Jim by his first name since the day they met, but the significance of that offer here turns it into something new.

“Good,” Kirk, clipping the word to nothing. “Let me worry about the arrangements. I’ll stop back here at six, ship’s time. If you need anything or you’d like a more thorough tour of the Enterprise you know who to comm.”

===

The intervening hours see Leonard doing battle with the computer console bolted into his doll-sized desk, going over tapes of this Federation’s history, old mission reports, and medical technology. Or trying to anyway. He fights with the computer more than he gets any actual reading done. Not least because no one must read much here, relying more on the computer to spit information back at them in that creepy woman’s monotone than looking at actual words. “Haven’t y’all heard of personal PADDs before?” Leonard complains.

“Working,” the computer says.

Leonard knocks his forehead against the desktop in defeat. “Belay that request,” he says with all the resignation of a man awaiting an unjust yet certain execution.

“Affirmative.”

“I’ll affirmative you,” Leonard mumbles, punching the button that turns the thing off. At least he hopes it turns the thing off. Bad enough he had to talk to it to figure anything out in the first place. He doesn’t want it listening in on him because he’s incompetent with it, too.

Then a chime sounds, pulling Leonard from his pit of overzealous despair. Before he can get up or otherwise acknowledge the summons, the door slides open, admitting the captain— _Jim_ —carrying two trays. One holds a bottle of Saurian brandy and two delicate snifters, the other, two plates with salads. Highly dressed salads, but salads nonetheless, as well as a small amount of fruit in danger of drowning in the dressing. Leonard can’t fathom a dinner of even remotely healthy food for Jim, so he focuses on the brandy. Does McCoy have a taste for it? Leonard's a bourbon man through and through, doesn’t even know where he’d have picked up a brandy habit.

Ki— _Jim_ pours him a glass and who is Leonard to decline freely offered liquor? Once Leonard tries it, he decides that McCoy has a more discriminating palate than he'd given him credit for. Who knew the stuff actually tastes decent?

"You look surprised," Jim says, sipping from his own glass. He then brings the snifter up to eye level to more closely scrutinize it. "Don't they have Saurian brandy where you come from?"

"They do. I just don't drink it." Leonard takes another sip. His previous conclusion stands. “Not sure why not."

"Fascinating," Jim says, doing a passable imitation of Spock. “It was Bones who introduced me to the stuff here.”

“You call him Bones? Is it because you don’t think the name Leonard suits him either?”

Jim laughs. “No, he’s a Leonard, but he carries on with his old country doctor spiel so often that I felt it fit.”

Leonard nods, gratified that there’s one Leonard out there who can carry his own name without a Jim Kirk there to mock him about it, even if the victory is empty. He picks at his salad, trying to figure out where the lettuce is underneath the creamy dressing and croutons. Leonard catches Kirk watching him, his crow’s feet deepening with amusement at Leonard’s behavior. “I get the feeling you’ve found yourself a workaround for some prudent medical advice given to you by my counterpart,” Leonard says conversationally. “If he ordered you to eat more greens, I’m sure this isn’t what he had in mind.

“Maybe I just like salad dressing,” Jim answers blandly.

“I don’t think so.”

“I take it you hound your Jim about his diet, too?” Kirk tuts mournfully. “That poor young man.”

“Nope,” Leonard says, finally taking a bite of the loosely defined salad. “He wants to destroy his physique, that’s on him. ‘S long as he passes his physicals and doesn’t give himself an allergic reaction, I couldn’t care less what he ingests.”

“I’ll have to inform your counterpart of your liberal philosophy. I’m not sure he’ll believe me.”

“Maybe ten years from now I’ll be even worse than he is. Who knows what sorts of personality defects you’ll drive me to in my future?”

“Touché.”

The impish smile with which Jim gifts him surprises a blush out of him. Thankfully Leonard’s complexion doesn’t lend itself to noticeable coloration, but the telltale warmth creeps up his throat, making him aware of it and that's bad enough. A wave of regret washes most of the sensation away after only a moment. He and Jim haven’t done anything like this since Jim made captain. They share meals together in the mess when they’re on the same shift sometimes, but it’s nothing as intimate as this meal, and even less like their days in each other’s pockets during the Academy.

Leonard could get used to this familiarity again easily. He robs himself of further inquiry into the topic with more ruthlessness than he usually summons when he comes across a pointless thought. No good will come of considering it too closely. He wouldn't trade his Jim for the world and he won’t admit even to himself that this built-in feeling of establishment he’s stumbled into with this Jim reaches him a little too deeply.

Stability, his mother would have called it. There’s nothing like it.

“Just how well is your McCoy handling being out there, do you think?" Leonard asks, more as a diversionary tactic than out of true curiosity on his part.

"With much less grace than you're handling it, I'm sure. Especially if everyone is as young as you are."

Leonard grimaces. "Younger, obviously. Except for Scotty. It's obscene."

Jim shakes his head, opens his mouth to speak. Spock’s voice interrupts the moment, saying, “Bridge to Captain Kirk,” over the room’s comm unit, filling the space with too much sound, much louder than the level at which Leonard and Kirk had been speaking.

Jim gets up to answer, plucking a chunk of fruit from his tray as he goes. He pounds the button that activates the unit, so clumsy compared to the system back on his Enterprise. Leonard still can’t believe the state of the technology, makes him crawly with suspense at the state of the medbay. He refused to visit when given the opportunity to see it earlier. He doesn't want nightmares about inferior equipment, thanks much. "Kirk here."

Leonard listens in as Spock explains how he and Scotty have isolated the mechanism responsible for the transporter malfunction while Chekov and Sulu have scanned the planet hoping to find the phenomenon that matches that which occurred when Leonard had first beamed up. Leonard understands maybe one word in three and reaches the conclusion that a formation is imminent.

Which means now or never.

"Understood. I'll bring the good doctor to the transporter room. Kirk out."

Jim walks over to Leonard and places his hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry you'll be going so soon," he says, grasping Leonard’s bicep and pulling him to his feet. "I like you, Doctor." He slides his other hand around Leonard's wrist while the first drifts upward to rest on Leonard's neck, palm over his carotid artery. It beats madly under a touch that carries into his hairline where Jim’s thumbnail scratches at the base of his skull behind his ear.

Jim leans in, analyzing Leonard for a reaction that Leonard feels incapable of offering. Leonard hadn’t expected such a gesture and doesn’t know what to do with it now that he has it. His own eagerness to bridge the distance between them troubles him, holds him back, brings every anxiety to the surface, because there’s no point here, nothing more on offer than a physical display of affection that Leonard hadn’t even known he’d wanted. And yet.

“May I?” Jim asks, fingers curling around Leonard’s wrist. Leonard’s focus skitters from that sensation to the question and back again before Leonard can formulate a reasoned answer.

His split second reaction, no doubt flawed by Spock’s standards, suggests he’s got nothing to lose. He won’t be here for much longer anyway. It can’t actually hurt anything. “Sure,” Leonard answers thickly, investing every ounce of his willpower in the bravado necessary to follow through for no reason he can comprehend fully. “’Course.”

As Jim presses his lips against Leonard’s, chaste by anyone’s standards, a desire to return to his own Jim stirs in Leonard’s gut. He’ll never be as close to any Jim Kirk as he is at this moment and he’s never felt as far away from the one he wants to be near. When Jim pulls away, Leonard chases after him with more enthusiasm than would be deemed proper in a few counties back home, finds something he’d never even known to miss, ballparks exactly how fucked he is right now, the only form of statistics he understands on an intuitive level.

Jim returns that enthusiasm twice over while something like guilt and possibility dig into Leonard’s chest and take up shop there. He’s not sure yet whether he’s made a mistake here, but he can’t find it in himself to be wholly sorry either way.

“I’ll be damned,” Leonard says, breathing heavily once he pulls back.

Jim huffs an empathetic laugh. "I'd say so."

Leonard squeezes Jim's forearm for support. Jim doesn't seem to mind, covers Leonard’s trembling hand with one of his own as he leads him toward the door.

===

Loneliness strangles Leonard as he stands on that transporter pad, versions of his friends arrayed around him who are unable to complete this particular journey for or with him. So much for his steady hands; they still shake, though now with strain rather than the miasma of emotions Kirk inspired in him not moments ago. Kirk's sure gaze, resting on Spock, puts some of Leonard’s nervousness to bed. The quiet competence he sees from the Vulcan eases him the rest of the way. As long as he ignores the giant hunk of metal that serves as this _Enterprise’s_ transporter mechanism, he might make it through this with his sanity intact. It must work and if it’s here on the flagship it must be top of the line for this universe. Not like his own transporter had held up any better in the bizarre planetary disturbance that struck Leonard alone among the original landing party.

"Thank you, Spock," Leonard says between deep, nearly calming breaths.

"There is no need for your gratitude, Doctor. Your universe needs you, as our universe needs our Doctor McCoy. It is only logical we should find the solution."

"You could just say you're welcome," Leonard mutters, much, apparently, to Kirk's delight.

Spock inclines his head, which is more than Leonard would've gotten out of his Spock, so he accepts it without further comment.

"Looks like we've found ourselves a universal constant, Spock, wouldn't you say?" Kirk asks, nowhere near as ruffled as Leonard feels despite their earlier encounter. "You exasperate Leonard McCoys everywhere.”

“Two individuals who share a similar temperament hardly constitute proof of a universal constant, let alone one that crosses the boundaries between universes, Captain,” Spock answers with disapproval. It’s different from the way the Spock in Leonard’s universe berates Jim. When his Spock even bothers, it can get mean. The Spock here merely seems to enact his part in a comfortable, yet ultimately harmless, ongoing argument.

Jim’s eyes widen innocently. “Is that so, Mr. Spock? I’ll consider that the next time I make a joke.”

“There might even be a universe out there where I’m the exasperating one. Isn’t that right, Spock?” Leonard says, uncharacteristically charitable in his feelings toward the Vulcan. Anyone who gives Jim that much innocuous hell can’t be all bad.

“Of that I have no doubt, Doctor,” Spock says pointedly, returning his attention to the task at hand. “We are ready to begin transport, Captain.”

“Go ahead, Spock,” Kirk—and Leonard has to begin thinking of him as Kirk again now, he already has a Jim—answers, voice low and a bit sad. It touches Leonard that Kirk should be affected by his absence even this tiny bit, when not moments later he’ll be reunited with his McCoy, for whom his gladness will surely overwhelm any other emotion.

Leonard's last memory of the place is Kirk's steady hazel eyes. A fitting end to his adventure as the first thing he sees when he returns to his timeline is the fear filled blue of Jim's. Despite the lurch in Leonard’s stomach at the sight, he steps off the transporter pad more relaxed than he's been in weeks, if not since that whole mess with the _Narada_. He’s home. The very fact of it strikes him viscerally. Even the air circulates correctly here, a fact Leonard would never have noticed otherwise. And he wants nothing more at this moment than to put Jim as much to right as he feels. No one’s hurt, maimed, or killed. Leonard wasn’t even gone a whole day. It could have been worse.

Anything else can wait.

"Bones!" Jim says, rounding the console in a graceless lunge that ends in an abbreviated stop a few feet away from Leonard. His painful youth and terror stand in stark contrast to his older counterpart and Leonard's afraid to even touch him for fear of breaking him. He damn near vibrates with suppressed emotion. They can’t be that different, can they? Or will age change Jim that much? Jim shouldn’t be this worried about him; hell, he wasn’t even this worried about himself and he lived it through it. Kirk had known everything would turn out; Jim looks as though he’d only expected the worst and couldn’t even hope for the best, that this is a miracle on par with the shit Scotty pulls out of his ass down in the engine room.

"I knew you would do it, Spock," Leonard calls, surprising the Vulcan with his favor.

"Indeed," Spock says, spine straightening impossibly under the compliment. "It was only a matter of time before Misters Scott, Sulu, Chekov and I solved the problem."

“I tried to place bets on which of you would figure it out first,” Leonard says, earning Spock’s full attention for maybe the third time ever, “but the captain insisted you both would reach the same solution at exactly the same time.”

“An illogical assumption on the captain’s part then,” Spock answers, eyebrows furrowed, inadvertently mirroring the other Spock's disapproval. “Even if we are alike in every respect, there is no way of knowing if that would be the case.”

Leonard frowns, the moment lost. “Well, that’s a human for you.”

Jim watches this exchange, perplexed.

"So how much of a monster is the other me?” Leonard asks, handing Jim a distraction on a silver platter. “Old and crotchety as I am or do I mellow with age?"

Jim musters a pale imitation of a smile. "No one's as old and crotchety as you, Bones."

"There was something almost soothing about his presence, Doctor," Spock admits, even as a calm lake on a windless day. Leonard chooses not to smart under the veiled assumption that Leonard’s presence is _not_ soothing. Leonard can be _perfectly_ soothing. Not for Spock, maybe, but he’s a Vulcan. Why would he need to be soothed? "When he was not voicing every concern he felt about the ship, of course. The medbay occupied much of his attention. I do not believe he visited the bridge even once to interrupt ship’s business after his initial tour."

Jim nods along, willing to play this game at least. As such, Leonard can overlook Spock’s second, not so veiled, criticism just this once. "I think he wanted to take it with him.” Then he smiles fondly. “He even teased Spock, Bones."

Leonard arches an eyebrow which leads Jim to pointing at him, more vibrant now.

"He does that, too!"

Leonard hooks his thumb over his shoulder at the transporter. "I could always go back if you like the other model better. The other yous aren't so bad either. That Jim's actually a gentleman. And Spock sasses back,” finally Leonard spares a glance at Spock, “less so than usual anyway."

"No, I don't think so, Bones," Jim says, guiding Leonard away from the transporter with his arm thrown around Leonard's shoulders as though to mitigate the chances of Leonard actually making a break for the it. "Besides, there's no Jim out there who's a gentleman. You're pulling my leg."

"Well, alright. If you insist."

"I do,” Jim says, digging his fingers into Leonard’s bicep. “My insistence is most emphatic."

===

It comes to Leonard later in the privacy of his own quarters on his own ship where his own people work that maybe Jim and Spock haven’t made as much progress in that twice destined friendship as Leonard had thought.

A complicated mix of relief and disappointment swirls around his insides at that realization.

===

Then Khan makes himself known, popping up like a specter from that other timeline, bedeviling them in new and interesting ways, and for a while Leonard’s got a few more important things to worry about than Jim and Spock’s friendship.

===

Leonard mulls over his options. He's not a matchmaker, damn it, and he's not good at making friends anymore. He left all that behind before the divorce. Who needs new friends when you had your med school buddies and a wife? He has to stretch himself to even remember what it was like before the marriage, when he’d been known for showing up and showing off, making friends and acquaintances effortlessly; popular enough to know someone just about everywhere he went, that once described Leonard McCoy. But that ain't him now. He's smart enough to realize he'll need some help.

First, he needs to get Jim out from underfoot for more than five minutes at a time. And that’s a new one. The minute neither of them is on duty, he's there. All the time. Leonard never realized how much free time Jim has when there’s not a starship to play with until he's occupying every moment of it in Leonard's presence. And worse, Leonard can’t tell if it’s because of what happened or because they’re stuck on Earth until Scotty completes repairs on the _Enterprise_.

"Hey, Bones!" Jim says, stepping into Leonard’s office as though just thinking about Jim summons him. Leonard rolls his eyes heavenward even though it wastes precious seconds he could use to do his job. He's been off-duty all of two minutes, incidentally the length of time it takes to jog from Jim’s set up in the admin building down the quad to the Academy clinic. Leonard hasn't even put the finishing touches on his last chart. And there are still a few bits of bureaucratic hoop jumping he’d like to finish before it can proliferate like a well-fed tribble. Instead he’s got Jim, like he doesn't trust Leonard to stay put without constant supervision.

But Leonard can't bring himself to yell at Jim about it. The too fresh memory of unzipping that body bag to expose Jim’s dead body to the world beats back the impulse. Jim means well; Leonard knows it and appreciates it somewhere underneath all that aggravation he feels, but Jim needs to spend time with Spock, and he needs to do it for Leonard's sanity in addition to his own safety, because if Leonard has to listen to one more story about Chekov and Sulu's excellent adventures in mentoring, Leonard will stab him with a hypo. And maybe not a helpful one for once.

It doesn't help that Jim’s eyes follow him all over the place whenever they’re together, which is always, so in addition to feeling like a magician in danger of losing his secrets to a keen spectator, he feels like the kind of shady character parents warn their kids about to make them behave. It creeps Leonard out. He’s seen static paintings with features that stare at you from every angle that wig him out less.

He's just—worrying's _his_ job, not Jim's. And Jim’s no good at it, buries Leonard under the weight of it and if Leonard's anything like this when Jim's the one in danger, well, Leonard's contemplating asking Spock to teach him the ways of Vulcan indifference because it can’t be pleasant for anyone. And that’s leaving aside the fact that Jim just doesn’t react to stress like this. Leonard’s looked at death in the face on a couple of occasions and Jim’s never hovered this seriously before.

"A little birdie told me there's peach cobbler on the menu tonight. Better get moving if we want any," Jim says, crossing his arms and staring Leonard down as though daring him to deny it.

Leonard rubs at his hairline in frustration, but obediently puts his work away, making a production of the action by lifting his PADD above his head before slowly lowering it into a drawer. "Your obsession with stereotypes is cute, anyone ever told you that?"

Jim flushes suspiciously. "You think I'm cute?" he asks flippantly, missing Leonard’s point on purpose.

Leonard stands up and grins viciously, baring all his teeth as he slaps Jim on his bicep. Hard. From across his desk. "Oh, absolutely, darlin'. I have your Teen 'Fleet spread tacked up in my locker and everything."

"Teen 'Fleet is not a thing," Jim retorts sickly, hopeful yet uncertain.

"Are you sure? My first cousin once removed says otherwise. Zie wants your autograph, by the way." Leonard grasps Jim by the elbow and pulls him out of his office and into the clinic hallway. "And another thing: Starfleet doesn't know the first thing about peach cobbler. Shouldn't be allowed anywhere within a ten mile radius of a peach unless they intend to scandalize my great uncle Eugene with it. In which case they’re doing an excellent job."

Lord, Leonard really, really needs help if he’s talking about great uncle Eugene.

“How’s it going with Spock anyway?” Leonard then asks, wincing as he voices the question. Not the subtlest of segues, Leonard Horatio.

But Jim hardly notices. “He’s been busy. The brass has him running the Maru again. Uhura says he’s adding new features to make it a more realistic experience for the cadets.”

They hit the officer’s mess before Leonard can comment, conveniently located as it is next to the Academy clinic. The planners must have intended to make Jim’s stalking even easier to excuse. It’s not as though working next door to the guy is bad enough. No, he has three built in reasons everyday to explain why he'd pass within spitting distance of Leonard's office. They retrieve their meals from the replicators, Leonard sans peach cobbler, Jim with, well, everything and the peach cobbler and maybe three bits of the spinach salad, which figures. Some things never change. Leonard hopes Jim regrets the cobbler at least.

Leonard spots Spock and Uhura sitting alone in one corner and as he has more important fish to fry here than trying to shift Earth’s orbit or roll a rock up a hill in perpetuity, he chooses not to voice his concerns about Jim’s nutritional intake. He remembers Kirk’s method of passive aggressive resistance and his largely indifferent response to it, and can’t believe how quickly things have changed now that Jim’s actually had the gall to die on him. Leonard doesn’t have a prescient bone in his body, but he’d certainly called that one.

Most of the time he follows Jim's lead in terms of seating arrangements, but fortune favors the bold and all that, so before Jim can suggest they find Riley or someone equally horrifying to harass during dinner, Leonard picks his way past the crowd of people to reach Uhura and Spock’s table, leaving Jim to trail after him for once.

“Mind if we sit here, Lieutenant?” Leonard asks, trying to maintain his dignity as surprise and curiosity cross Uhura’s face.

“Of course, Doctor,” Uhura answers, glancing at Spock for confirmation he offers in the form of a minute nod. “Be our guests.”

“I’m off duty, Uhura, I think you can call me by at least one of my names,” Leonard answers as he takes his seat across from her. Jim follows along cautiously, only really taking his seat when Leonard glares at him and Uhura gives the okay with a gesture of dubious welcome. Spock continues eating mechanically; do Vulcans count the number of times they chew? It sure looks like it.

Uhura smirks. “Thank you, Horatio.”

Oh, this will definitely be pleasant, he thinks, as he cuts into his steak. But if that’s how she wants to play it he won’t give her the satisfaction of seeing him embarrassed by the use of his well-traveled middle name. His mama gave him that name, only the last to pass it forward through generations of McCoys; he wouldn’t do her the dishonor of pretending it doesn’t belong to him. He’s not actually ashamed of it. But he will remember to take it out of Jim’s hide at a later date. No doubt Jim's responsible for the circulation of this tidbit getting out. Why he believes he has a leg to stand on, name like Tiberius floating around in his own background to taunt him, flies right over Leonard’s understanding.

“So,” Uhura says with that pleasant edge that suggests she’s not sure what’s about to pop out of her mouth. “How are things in the clinic?” she asks, as a disconcerted frown tugs down at her lips. And well it should. She’s the chief communications officer on the _Enterprise_. If anyone ought to have awkward small talk in the bag, it’s her.

But Leonard’s never been one to leave a lady hanging out to dry no matter what the ex would say, so he answers as gamely as a man who avoids small talk as a hobby can. “Not bad. A lot of busy work, but what’s new there, right?”

“Maybe you should talk about the weather next,” Jim whispers incredulously in an aside that would do a Shakespearian actor proud. Flashing a grin at Uhura, he adds, “I really think that’s what this conversation’s missing.”

"How's the peach cobbler? Still a lot left on your plate, I see," Leonard says in warning, doing his damnedest to keep from stomping on Jim’s instep.

"Your great uncle Eugene would approve," Jim says primly.

It's inappropriate to snort in front of company, so Leonard just shakes his head and bites back a smile. Jim's full of shit; everyone can see it, even Spock if the delicately exaggerated upward sweep of his eyebrow indicates anything.

And bless the Vulcan, he chooses this moment to pick up his end of the conversation, eyeing the cobbler with distrust. "I do not believe anyone's great uncle would approve, Captain. It is my understanding of Earth culture that older family members are often adept in the culinary arts. This dessert would not pass an inspection with any such skilled individual."

Any other time, Leonard might have worried that Jim wouldn't need him if he became friends with Spock, but if this is how it would be, Leonard might willingly take the chance. Leonard’s never seen Jim speechless, but there he goes, slack jawed and silent. “See, Jim?” he asks, elbowing Jim in the side. “Even the Vulcan thinks this peach cobbler is an abomination. You’ve gotta admit, odds are against you.”

Uhura all but bursts with joy, averting her eyes to keep from laughing outright at the tableau spread before her. Spock returns to his salad—good man, looks like Leonard won’t be treating him for some old fashioned heart disease anytime down the line—as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

"Well argued, Spock," Leonard says, nudging Jim's mouth shut with an index finger. “You’re a credit to great uncle Eugene.”

Leonard hadn't known Spock could sit any straighter than he already does, but he seems to grow just that much taller after Leonard speaks.

Uhura smiles approvingly at Leonard as guilt wells up from a tiny fissure inside of him. He hasn't always been at his best with Spock over the last year, no doubt driving a wedge between himself and Uhura in the process. They hadn't been the greatest friends at the Academy, but he'd always expected they'd be closer if they found themselves posted together. But, Leonard supposes, being an asshole about your boyfriend would make camaraderie difficult.

The conversation stalls while everyone picks at the remnants of their meals.

"Well, this has been fun," Leonard says after a few moments, wiping down his bit of the table with a napkin he dips in his glass of water, "but Jim here dragged me away from my work before I'd finished housekeeping, so I ought to head back."

"But Bones—”

"I'll walk with you," Uhura says suddenly, cutting Jim off. "If you don't mind, Leonard, and you have a minute. I've been working on a personal project and some of the translation work has been difficult without the appropriate medical knowledge. Maybe you could help with that?"

Leonard narrows his eyes, suspecting an ulterior motive, but he glances at Spock and sees him nod as though he knows all about it, so Leonard goes along with it. If she does have an ulterior motive, she’s covered her tracks. "I got time."

Jim slumps in his seat, but he glances up when Leonard wraps a hand around his warm shoulder. "See you later, Jim," he says, half apology, half promise.

"Yeah, yeah." Jim says, waving him off with all the enthusiasm of a pup too sick to play like it wants to.

===

"So what's going on?" Uhura asks as soon as his office door slides shut behind them. She folds her arms across her chest while Leonard tries to formulate an answer, but she barrels on without his input, which is just as well really. He has no good explanation. "Is this about your trip to the ambassador's universe?" She sounds rough around the edges, making Leonard wonder what she thinks is happening.

Leonard sighs. "Take a seat, Uhura." He fishes his bottle of bourbon and two glasses from a desk drawer. After pouring her drink, he fiddles with the bottle, trying to turn his thought processes into something another person would understand. It's all a jumble in Leonard's mind.

"I think Jim and Spock need that great friendship the ambassador insists he and Kirk shared in that other universe."

"Jim and Spock work pretty well together already, Leonard."

"I know that,” Leonard says, scrubbing at the stubble starting to come in over his jawline. “But that Kirk is settled, confident in ways Jim only pretends to be."

"And you think Spock made the difference?” Uhura asks, obviously not convinced. “He's older though, isn't he, when you met him?"

Leonard nods. He does think that. But Uhura's not wrong either. Maybe Jim will grow into his own skin and maybe Jim and Spock will find their own way, or they might not, and even so it could work out fine. There are too many variables to predict what could happen. But maybe it will be Leonard's fault if they don’t and Jim will be left the worse off for it. And that's a chance Leonard won't take without trying.

"He was that close with Spock?" Uhura asks. Her fingers trace the lip of her glass. Leonard knows what she's really asking though. It’s the same question he’s been asking himself since he learned that they’re just the unintended side effect of an action taken in another universe.

"They're close. Closer than me and Jim surely." Leonard’s never seen Jim look at him the way Kirk looks at Spock anyway. And how much does he hate saying that? "Not so close as you and Spock."

Uhura relaxes a little. "So what about him made such an impression?"

Leonard leans back and closes his eyes. "He actually had fun with the whole thing."

"It wasn't like that here," Uhura says, hedging a little, no doubt to in an effort to protect Jim.

"I know."

"He told you?"

Leonard shakes his head. Of course Jim didn’t tell him. Jim hasn’t said anything about it. "Didn't have to. I could see it on his face when I stepped off the transporter pad."

"Why Spock though?"

Leonard rubs his eyes. "What do you mean? Obviously Spock's the reason Kirk didn't worry."

"You’re misunderstanding me. That relationship you’re talking about? Jim already has it," Uhura says, pausing momentarily, “with you.”

Leonard leans forward, plants his elbows on his desk and swirls his glass, swishing the liquid inside. "I can’t do what Spock does. Sometimes I wish I could."

Uhura purses her lips, dubiousness clear, but she doesn't speak.

"Spit it out," he says.

"I think McCoy was a little jealous," Uhura says carefully, making Leonard curious about just how disruptive McCoy’s presence had been on the ship. "He didn't expect Jim to be so protective of you."

"Yeah, well. That McCoy has it pretty good far as I can tell. I'm not sweating it."

Uhura arches an eyebrow, but doesn’t pursue the argument he sees brewing in that mind of hers. "Okay. So I know why you’re doing what you’re doing, and I don't think it'll hurt anything, but I still don’t know what it is you’re doing. What exactly do you have in mind? You do have a plan right?"

"How do you feel about poker?" he asks, now that he's got her on board.

Uhura smiles brightly. "I feel good about poker."

===

Unexpectedly Jim throws up the first major wrinkle in Leonard’s plan. Jim’s never met a game of poker he didn’t like, at least according to every story Jim’s ever told about his experience with it. Leonard had thought suggesting it would be a no-brainer. Now Leonard’s not so sure. "You want to do what with who now?" Jim asks warily.

"Uhura and I want to play poker and I want you there. And she wants Spock there."

"You want to play poker with Spock and Uhura?"

"And you."

"And me?"

Leonard has never regretted anything more in his life than this idea at this moment. If he’d known it would require going to dentistry school to secure Jim's participation, he’d have called the whole thing off and locked Jim and Spock in a room somewhere instead. It’s what he gets for thinking to use finesse. Jim doesn’t much care for finesse. "Damn it, Jim. They really do know how to pick 'em in Starfleet. You sure you're smart enough to be captain? Yes, Uhura and Spock _and you_. Some cards, maybe some bourbon, a good time had by all. Poker night."

Jim nods like he's on a diplomatic mission, hanging on Leonard's every word all while trying to squirm his way out of this with all his limbs intact.

"You don't have to," Leonard says once he realizes that Jim’s actually stalling. If he doesn’t want to, that’s okay. He just has to say so.

"No, it's fine. I just didn't realize you were so close to them."

"I'm not, but I figure in about a year we’re all gonna be stuck on that boat of yours for five more. Might as well form a few bonds outside of work in the process."

Jim rubs the back of his head and when he nods this time it's in concession to Leonard’s skilled reasoning. It has nothing to do with merely giving in for the sake of expediency. Then Jim grimaces. “Spock, really?”

“Yes, Spock. What’s wrong with Spock?”

“Nothing,” Jim says in the manner of all individuals trying to psych themselves up for a horrible experience. “I didn’t know Spock plays poker.”

===

They meet up at Leonard’s apartment and within three hands he knows exactly why Jim had hesitated and it had nothing to do with the people involved. On the other hand, it has everything to do with Jim's utterly heinous poker skills. He's a good enough sport about it and doesn’t even gun for Leonard suggesting it, but as Leonard's the kind of guy who hides a streak of chivalry under twenty layers of sarcasm, it's painful for him to watch without stepping in. Jim folds hands Leonard can tell he should call; raises when he should fold. Jim’s poker face on the bridge garners notoriety across the quadrant, but put him at a proper card table and the corner of his mouth ticks upward the minute he gets a good hand while he squints when they’re poor. Maybe if Leonard had invited a Romulan commander in, he’d do better, but it’s not looking too good for Jim right now.

“Captain, before this evening I would have expected your mastery of this game to be more comprehensive,” Spock says, verbally echoing Leonard’s thoughts. Uhura coughs delicately into her fist while Leonard narrowly avoids breaking all the laws of physics and biology in order to push his hand through his own face in resignation.

“We’re off duty, Spock,” Jim says, ignoring the fact that a Vulcan just mocked him about a game that hinges on bluffing. “It’s Jim. We had the talk, remember? The correct forms of address talk?”

“My apologies,” Spock answers, inelegantly sidestepping the issue completely by calling him nothing at all.

“And for your information, not all skills translate across the board,” Jim says, too evenly to hide the snide intent behind his words. “Last I checked starship captains don’t need to pass a course in card playing to get their commissions.”

“I fold, you Vulcan cheat,” Leonard says, wasting his last chance at redemption just to disrupt the conversation before Jim can get going. He does flick his cards at Spock in a show of solidarity though. “Don’t think I haven’t figured you out.” And because he doesn’t even have two of them to rub together anymore, he chucks his last remaining chip at Jim, hitting him square in the jaw with it for his own sake.

“Vulcans do not cheat,” Spock says.

“That computer inside your head is counting cards or I’ll eat my hat,” Leonard answers back.

“You do not have a hat with which you could complete that action, Doctor. It is no great task to keep track of which cards are likely to be in play and which are not. Why would I not expend the small effort to ensure the greatest probability of success?”

“That’s the point. You’re supposed to go on instinct, play the guy across from you, not the odds of what he’s holding in his hands. That’s what Blackjack’s for.”

Jim holds up his hands up, palms open, dramatically broadcasting the fact that he’s not saying a word.

“What?” Leonard asks, on the defensive now for himself. “You think I can’t count cards, too? Come on. It’s just no fun in poker.”

“Not for the loser, maybe,” Jim says, deadpan. He smiles beatifically then, as though by calling Leonard out, he realizes he can now include Leonard in what had been a circle of one and finish the night relaxing in good company.

With nothing better to do, Leonard fetches everyone drinks and sits back to watch and secretly root for Uhura.

But even Uhura eventually admits defeat, conceding to inevitability. Between the cheating and the beginner’s luck on Spock’s side, she hardly stood a chance even though she rallied well, enough that Leonard suspects Spock stopped counting cards somewhere in there while she stopped playing nice.

“That’s it for me,” Uhura says, pushing what remains of her chips at Spock in a symbolic gesture of defeat, thus ending the pain of two decent players and Jim losing to a Vulcan novice. Calling it a night, she draws Spock away with a delicate swipe of her fingers across the back of his hand.

"Unbelievable," Leonard mutters, following their progress from the card table where he cleans up the detritus left behind in the aftermath of the Vulcan menace. Jim tries to help, but Leonard just shoos him back to his seat; it _is_ Leonard's fault Jim was a part of this, no reason he should suffer for it.

"Well, that was fun," Jim says eventually, smiling like he’s hiding a stomachache.

Leonard hmms noncommittally.

"So are we doing that again?"

"Not a chance,” Leonard says, putting the deck of cards back into the box.

“Oh.”

Leonard looks up just in time to see Jim's face fall. "I'll think of something else," he says quickly, wondering if Jim actually did have a good time despite the fact that Spock’s a filthy cheat and a card sharp. Jim doesn’t usually take losing so magnanimously though, so Leonard doesn't know what to make of the possibility.

"We could play four-handed chess," Jim suggests wistfully.

"That's a thing?" Leonard asks suspiciously. “Can you cheat at it?” It sounds like it'll end in tears and bloodshed, but he'd take one for the team. And Uhura plays, so it wouldn't be hard to convince her. And maybe she could beat Spock for Leonard's edification because Jim sure as hell won’t.

"Oh, sure. There're tons of four-player variants. I'm not very good at them, but... it could be fun. Jim's face does that thing that breaks Leonard's heart with the amount of hesitant earnestness he sees there. “I’m sure someone could cheat at it, but I don’t think you’d stand at it.”

“It wasn't _me_ I’m worried about.”

===

Leonard plays host again as his apartment's the easiest location at which to meet. It's closest to campus and he’s never there anyway, so it never really gets dirty enough that he has to expend much more than the barest effort cleaning it up. Besides, Jim’s place attracts more than its fair share of entropy, so Leonard would never suggest they all go there.

As expected, Spock takes them to the cleaners at this, too.

“Spock, you could take the fun out of anything,” Leonard says, sure that Spock had engaged his considerable intellect in a cruel and targeted campaign to punish Leonard for who knows what. He knocks over his king, realizing he’s twice far as out of his depth as he’d thought he’d be going in, chooses to use his time to repair the tatters of his self-worth while Jim, Uhura, and Spock take one another’s pieces and check each other across the truly wicked looking board. Leonard has no idea where Jim even got a hold of it; he’s never seen anything like it.

Then Jim checkmates Uhura and things get a little more interesting.

“Spock, I’m going to tell the entire bridge crew that you lost to the captain if you do, in fact, lose to the captain,” she says, winking at Leonard. “And that he beat you without cheating this time.”

“Uhura!” Jim says in a betrayed whisper.

“Don’t worry,” she says sweetly. “He already knows.”

“Indeed. Nyota did not need to tell me. Between the two of us, I am the more skilled player. It was only logical that your win would come with assistance,” Spock answers.

“Oh, really?” Jim says. “And why couldn’t I have beaten you? Uhura’s beaten you.”

“Nyota is a better player than you.”

Congratulating himself for making the right preparations, Leonard pulls his flask out of his trousers. He offers it to Uhura, figuring she deserves first dibs for her effort. Leonard can’t be sure what they’re doing is team building exactly, but it proves amusing to watch.

“Why is it that cheating seems to be a recurring theme here?” Leonard whispers into Uhura’s ear as she passes his flask back to him.

Uhura shrugs. “I don’t know. Are you really that surprised? Just don’t put me near a foosball table if you want to retain your high opinion of me.”

“I have a high opinion of you?” Leonard grins back, surprised and gratified by this insight, and plans to ask Scotty to install a foosball table in one of the Enterprise’s rec rooms as soon as possible. It shouldn't be difficult to convince him.

“Of course you do,” Uhura scoffs.

Even though they’re apparently playing for speed now that it's just the two of them, the battle for dominance between Spock and Jim takes so long that by the end of it Leonard has cultivated a beautifully well-balanced buzz that leaves him unconcerned with anything beyond sustaining the sensation as long as possible. Jim, flushed with exuberance despite his loss, flashes a gratuitous thumbs up at Leonard that Leonard would never return even if he was inclined to move.

"Perhaps a three person variant would be more appropriate in future, Captain," Spock says, sparing a mildly disapproving glance in Leonard’s direction. Leonard, feeling good will for human and Vulcan kind alike, merely replies with a polite, “Y’all have fun with that, Spock.”

Jim hesitates as he brings out the board’s case. "Yeah, Spock, sounds good," he says, standing quickly and thrusting his hand through his hair before cracking the thing open.

Spock bows shallowly and takes Uhura by the hand. "You have been a much more challenging opponent than I'd anticipated, Captain," Spock says before they say their goodbyes, leaving Leonard and Jim alone in the apartment. Leonard can’t quite bridge the gap between the Jim from before Spock spoke and the Jim standing there fiddling with the truly staggering number of pieces.

"Everything okay, Jim?" Leonard asks, following Jim’s actions with the close deliberateness of the intoxicated.

"Yeah, sure." Jim straightens up and suddenly Leonard wishes he hadn’t worked so hard for that perfect buzz because it’s sure putting him at a disadvantage now. "No,” he says, changing his mind with vicious efficiency, “you know, what are you doing, Bones?"

Leonard doesn’t think he’s doing anything so mysterious that Jim can’t figure it out, but he's never declined to expand on the truth in his life, and especially not when Jim asks. He picks at a flaw in the table. Pretty neutral ground in here. As good a place as any in which to hash this out. If this goes bad, at least it’s not the _Enterprise_.

"You mind sitting?" Leonard says, pushing a chair in Jim’s direction with his foot.

"Is this about the other Jim?" Jim asks, grasping the chair by the backrest and spinning it just to straddle the thing. Jim’s never met a chair he wouldn’t use improperly.

"Sort of," Leonard admits, taking the path of most resistance hoping he’ll pull enough information out of Jim to keep from inadvertently saying something that could be misconstrued. He doesn’t want to track Jim halfway across San Francisco in this state because he misspoke.

Jim nods, like he knows exactly what Leonard’s thinking and wants none of it. "You met him and now you want me to be him? Getting buddy-buddy with Spock the first step in a reeducation campaign?"

Leonard levels a glare at him because that’s ridiculous. "Don’t you think you’re getting a little ahead of yourself there, Jim?"

"Then what, man? Because I know at least as much about that universe as you do and I want nothing to do with it. That Jim's life... it's lonely, right, and kind of sad. I mean, he'll have Spock for a while, and the _Enterprise_ made him happier than I've ever been, but I don't want to be that married to my ship. He kind of falls apart when he's made admiral and everyone moves on to new jobs, you know? I don’t think the ambassador realizes just how much. He may know that guy, intimately even, but I am that guy. Could see myself in him from the glimpses I got."

"I don’t want you to be him, Jim," Leonard says. “I just want you to have friends who aren’t me.”

“I see,” Jim says, anger drawing his eyebrows down.

“I didn’t,” Leonard says weakly, queasiness stealing proper speech from him. “I didn’t mean that how it sounded.”

“Of course not.”

“For a while you were trying to get Spock to open up to you, you know,” Leonard continues, changing tactics despite the fact he’s awful at it and Jim can see through his bullshit ninety-nine times out of a hundred. “Whatever happened to that?”

“I didn’t want to force anything,” Jim says pointedly. Like Leonard’s always been in the business of nosing around where he doesn’t belong. “I don’t think Spock responds well to it.”

“You spent your last living moments trying to get through to that thick-headed Vulcan. That doesn’t sound forceful to you?”

“So you thought you’d help it along?” Jim asks, frustration pitching his voice up. “Hook me up with my destined BFF for my emotional well-being and suddenly I’m all good? Where do you fit into all this?"

"You're my best friend, Jim,” Leonard says simply. “Always will be. That’s where I fit.”

"You know, the other McCoy spent nearly an hour grilling me about you. I told him everything. And he was really fucking proud of you, especially for that stunt you pulled getting me on the _Enterprise_. Would've done the same for his Jim Kirk. He didn't say as much, but I could tell. If I live to be 150, I'll never know what we did to deserve you in our lives.

“He was incredibly interested in Spock and Uhura's relationship, too,” Jim says, tacking that last on almost as an afterthought.

"What are you saying, Jim?"

"I'm not saying anything,” he answers lightly, splaying his hands on the table to examine them.

"You are. I just don't know what it is."

Jim huffs quietly and shakes his head but gives nothing up. Leonard has half a mind to be angry about that. Jim doesn’t do this; if he’s got something stuck in his craw, he doesn’t pussyfoot around about it. He confronts it and Leonard cannot understand why he’d flinch now when he started it.

“I’ve got some paperwork to finish up,” Jim says before Leonard can find the key that’ll get Jim talking. He stands smoothly and rubs the misdirection into Leonard's shoulder. “Turns out grounded captains have to deal with it, too.”

Leonard hauls himself to his feet and follows after Jim to the door, propelling himself forward to block the way, hand on Jim’s chest. “Now wait a minute. You can’t just say something like that and not explain yourself.”

Jim shrugs out from under Leonard’s touch. “Come on,” he says, cajoling, “he’s you, isn’t he? You tell me why he’d care about Spock and Uhura so much.”

But that’s the problem. Leonard can’t think of any reason why his other self would care. It’s not like Leonard has feelings for Uhura. Or Spock. Or a relationship of that sort with one or the other or both of them. And he doubts his counterpart does either. Kirk never mentioned it anyway and there’d been no awkwardness that Leonard had experienced as a result. “I don’t know,” Leonard admits, defeated.

He steps out of the way, disappointment overtaking his determination to see this through for the moment.

Jim can think he’s won, but this isn’t over yet. Leonard knows where Jim lives and works after all. It’s not like the guy can avoid him forever.

===

With the assistance of some mutated cousin of luck in which Leonard’s not sure whether he’s glad for it or not, he pulls the earliest morning clinic shifts over the next few days, the kind of shifts in which nothing happens and no one needs him. Most combat training and sims start later in the day, so none of the typical injuries from either of those activities darken any of the exam rooms’ doorsteps, but someone needs to be here in case of emergencies, which means it’s Leonard and a handful of nurses he doesn’t know steering an empty vessel toward nothing and nowhere. He never thought he’d miss strolling up to the bridge to needle Spock a bit for everyone’s benefit, especially his own, and shoot the shit with Sulu before giving Jim a rundown of any issues the medbay might face during the day and maybe trade insults for a bit. The only good that comes of it is he has no reason to feel guilty for avoiding Jim. Jim has no reason to be on campus yet and he can’t exactly abandon the clinic just to go find him. Now if only he could find a good reason to stay at home every night instead of invading Jim's apartment, he'd be set.

Jim knows something is the thing. Jim’s got an idea in his head and he doesn’t like it and now he’s taking it out on Leonard. Leonard just can’t get a fix on what it is. And until he does, he’s staying well away. It might even be enough to get Jim to spill. Because Jim can’t stand it when Leonard’s attention drifts too far from center. Leonard has reached acceptable terms with it—where else does it belong anyway?—especially if he can use it to get Jim to come to his senses.

He does want to slap the hell out of his counterpart though. Whatever notion he put into Jim’s brain is doing a number on them here.

His plans for Jim and Spock take a back burner. It had been a stupid idea to begin with. Jim is Jim and Spock is Spock. Hell, Jim spent half his time before their return to San Francisco just bitching about Spock and how the ambassador must be senile if they’re supposed to be friends because obviously Spock never got the memo. They just weren't primed for forced social interactions.

Leonard sure solved one of his problems with this nonsense; he can say that much. Jim hasn’t harassed him once since they played chess.

===

Leonard is still pondering the problem at lunch in the officer’s mess when Jim walks in. It’s pretty empty right now, just the way Leonard likes it, and there are myriad empty tables to choose from. Leonard can’t help but notice Jim scanning the room, lifts his eyes briefly from his PADD before returning them to their rightful place reading a truly scintillating article about some Tellarite delegate getting into a fight with a diplomat from Andoria. Much to Leonard’s relief, he immediately makes for Leonard’s table, dropping into the chair across from him without grabbing his lunch first.

“It’s okay that that Spock and that Jim are so wrapped up in each other that they can’t even see what’s going on around them,” Jim says without so much as a warning or an greeting or any of the niceties that ease a person into awkward chats. If Leonard’s mother would lecture him for his meddling of late, at least she’d also harangue Jim about the art of proper conversation. “But I don’t want to be that guy. Not least of all because Uhura would skin me and make a coat out of it.”

“That's disgusting,” Leonard says, stabbing viciously at a piece of fruit in protest of the image. “And wildly inaccurate. And anyway, no one’s asking you to marry Spock. Just, you know, be friends.”

“We are friends.”

“Friends hang out.”

“We hang out,” Jim says. “We hang out on the bridge all the time. Probably too much if you ask Spock.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

Jim’s eyes widen in disbelief and his mouth turns downward. “Are you really going to argue with me right now? All I’m saying is we don’t have to be like the other guys. Play chess in the rec room or whatever. We can do our own thing.”

“We are doing our own thing,” Leonard says, tiring of this whole conversation, the happiness at having Jim speak with him wearing thin already. That’s got to be a record. “Look, if you really don’t want to do it, then fine, but you’re sending some mixed signals here. You seemed happy enough to go along with it while it was happening. It was only before and after you got all weird about it. What do you want?”

“I know I don’t want to make Spock hang out with me,” Jim says, which means there's something else he wants, but not enough to cop to it. Leonard can live with that.

“Well, okay, then. You've made that point perfectly clear twice now,” Leonard says, conciliatory, as though the whole thing’s that simple. And in a way it is. “I guess I’ll put an end to it. You and Spock can hang out on the bridge whenever Scotty gets around to fixing it for you. Sorry if it got out of hand.”

“No problem, Bones,” Jim says vaguely, like he has something else to say. Then he points at the row of replicators along the far wall. “I’m gonna go get some lunch now.”

Leonard nods. “You do that.”

===

Without his project, Leonard finds himself with a lot of nothing to do. He hadn’t realized just how much until he’s looking whole chunks of hours in the face without anything to show for them. Without his latest preoccupation, he’s not sure what to do with himself.

At least his to-do pile has dwindled to nothing.

And he’s so caught up on medical journals he thinks he might actually be reading studies from the future.

He even pulls his old gamepod hookup out of storage. He hasn’t gotten scores this high on the stupid PADD attachment since he was sixteen.

===

Leonard sits in his office, legs kicked up on his desk, hands laced behind his head as he contemplates the ceiling. This here is what they call relaxing and he’s been doing it for an hour now even though he’d asked to take the busiest shift after he couldn’t stand the morning shifts anymore. Apparently the Academy campus is now disease and accident free because not a single person has needed him in hours.

It’s nice enough, he supposes.

He sighs, crossing his ankles in the other direction. It’s something different anyway.

He cracks open an eye and glances around the room, wondering if a nap would be unprofessional.

===

Leonard doesn’t even know when he actually fell asleep, but he nearly topples his chair as he flails for a more appropriate position when his door slides open and startles him. If the look of studied innocence gracing Uhura’s features indicates anything, he has not succeeded.

He clears his throat. “Lieutenant, what can I do for you?”

She smiles then. “I’m off duty,” she says chidingly with the superiority of those looking at time off while their coworkers are stuck doing actual work. Not that Leonard’s accomplished anything related to actual work in hours. Then he looks at the time and knows why. He’d napped through the end of his shift. And no one had bothered to tell him.

“Okay, Uhura, what can I do for you?” he asks, leaning forward onto his elbows to look up at her.

“Jim’s looking for you,” Uhura says.

“I’m a doctor. This is a clinic. I carry a comm unit at all times. How hard’s he looking anyway?”

Uhura ignores him and gestures for him to get up. “Come on. You’ve been off duty for ages, too. Jim thinks you’re hiding from him. I won’t tell him what really happened.”

“Oh, like he won’t guess,” Leonard says, bowing to the inevitable. Jim has a sixth sense for catching Leonard when he does something naughty, a punishment for Leonard’s mostly good behavior the rest of the time despite Jim's bad influence. Leonard hates it. Made any attempts at pulling pranks on the guy nearly impossible when they were cadets. Unless he could pin the blame for this on Chekov or someone, which he can’t, Jim will know. “Where are we going?”

“Dinner,” Uhura says. “Jim’s idea. He figured we could all share a meal in his apartment.”

“Oh?” Leonard asks, inordinately pleased with the plan.

===

Dinner turns out to be one hundred percent not replicated pasta from that old fashioned Italian joint Jim used to drag Leonard to when he felt like being classier than the takeout they usually sprung for. This, unlike many things from Leonard’s past, is just as good as he remembers. It’s so good, in fact, that no one can tear their attention away from the food long enough to hold a conversation. But that’s okay; this occasion already feels less fraught with tension, competitive or otherwise, than any of Leonard’s ideas had afforded, so he can’t even consider it a step backward. And Jim’s apartment looks pristine, which was worth the price of admission all on its own.

“Can you believe I invited the rest of the senior staff and they declined?” Jim says eventually, laughter in his voice. “Turns out they have semi-regular hologame tournaments going. Even Dr. Marcus got in on it.”

“And you’re not there?” Uhura asks.

“Not really my thing,” Jim answers, though he glances slyly in Leonard’s direction while Leonard does his best to look innocent. He never realized just how white the alfredo sauce from this restaurant could be.

Uhura turns her attention to him, of course, because who wouldn’t pick up the cue Jim just dropped. He might as well have held a sign above Leonard’s head. “Do you play, Leonard?”

“Not really,” he answers and it’s the truth. Mostly. He expects Jim to call him out on the misdirection, but he just chews on his lower lip thoughtfully when Leonard checks with him. It’s not like Uhura buys it anyway, the way she answers with a rueful shake of her head.

“Hologames promote manual dexterity and improve hand-eye coordination, do they not, Doctor?” Spock asks.

“So they tell me,” Leonard answers, raising his glass of water to his lips. He refuses to look in Jim’s direction now though he’s sure Jim wants his attention more than he’s wanted anything else the whole night. “I could look into it for you if you’d like, Spock.”

“I suspect that effort would be unnecessary.”

The next thing Leonard knows Jim’s poking him in the knee, beating out a repetitive pattern that he absolutely doesn’t want to believe is Morse code. He brushes the hand away; who needs Morse code to know Jim’s excited?

===

Once Uhura and Spock leave, Leonard lingers, finding all sorts of reasons to stay put and feeling stupid about it. It's not like he needs an excuse. He helps clear the table anyway, rinses the dishes and silverware in the sink. He fidgets, looking around for some other chore to complete, when Jim hands him a lowball glass filled with bourbon.

“Have a drink with me, Bones,” Jim says, leading Leonard to the couch. Leonard sighs and sits carefully on the edge of the couch, taking a sip from the drink before setting it on the low table in front of him.

“I take it you approve?” Jim asks.

“It was a nice night,” Leonard answers.

“I’m glad you thought so,” Jim says, raising his glass to his lips. “Bourbon okay?”

“Yeah,” Leonard answers, thinking about the drink he’d shared with Kirk. It’s more than okay. And though Leonard treasures the fact that he got to share something like this with both of the Jim Kirks he’s met, he thinks he prefers this one even if Saurian brandy goes down a little easier. “What’s the occasion?”

Jim shakes his head. “No occasion. Just figured it was something we could do. We haven’t done this in a long time.”

“We haven’t done this ever,” Leonard points out, not like this anyway.

“Well, we can start here and now,” Jim says, frowning. “One of the nicer things I picked up from that mind meld.”

Leonard hadn’t heard this before, though it makes sense based on what he knows from personal experience. “The other me and you hang out together like this?”

“Mmhmm,” Jim answers.

“So why now? I wouldn’t have said no before.”

Jim shrugs, too studied to be as casual as he’s trying to be. Leonard peers at Jim from the corner of his eye, hoping to catch the salient detail while Jim’s off guard.

“Jim?”

“It’s nothing,” Jim says quickly. “You’ve been busy.”

“Not that busy.”

Jim doesn’t answer.

“We used to go out for drinks together,” Leonard offers.

“We did.”

“What’s going on in that head of yours, Jim?”

“It’s just weird is all. That you really know about the other us now,” Jim says, far afield of what Leonard thinks this conversation’s really about. “And that I’ve actually met the other you. And that you’ve met the other me.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t explain this,” Leonard says, wagging his hand between their glasses. “You know you can tell me, Jim. I won’t bite.”

Jim smiles wryly at that. “I’m not worried about that,” he says, layers of meaning hidden beneath the monotone delivery, meaning Leonard can’t get at. It’s so different from Jim's usual tones that Leonard doesn't have a point of reference.

“So what’s got you so wound up, Jim?” Leonard asks, draining the truly exquisite bourbon Jim gave to him, expecting he'll need it any minute now. In its wake, a comforting warmth suffuses him from the inside out. “If you can’t tell me, who are you going to tell?”

Jim stares openly, wary of Leonard. “Maybe you’re right.”

“I usually am.”

Jim capitulates with a hoarse bark of laughter. “Ah, hell. I felt guilty,” he admits. “That’s why I was…” He makes a complicated gesture to indicate whatever he’s trying to get across. “When you kept inviting Spock, Uhura and me to hang out. We haven’t spent much time together lately and here you were trying to bring me and Spock together, when all I really wanted to do was hang out with you, make up for all that time we didn’t see each other up there.”

“I know I’ve said it before, Jim, but it’s different up there. We’ll settle.”

“Yeah.” Jim leans forward and sets his tumbler on the table, the thick glass pounding loudly against the wood. His elbows connect with his knees and he laces his fingers together, resting his chin against them as he considers Leonard, building up to something. “What would you say if I told you that the Leonard McCoy from that universe has feelings for his Jim?”

Leonard deliberates over this for a moment. “I wouldn’t be surprised,” Leonard answers honestly. Kirk is something else, much like Jim in that respect.

“And that his Jim doesn’t return them?” Jim says, emphasizing his words strangely, almost like he finds the proposition dubious though Leonard can’t see why such a scenario would be so strange.

“Wouldn’t surprise me either,” Leonard says, hacking past the implications as quickly as possible. “Where are you going with this, Jim?”

“We kissed,” Jim says. Ripping off a primitive band aid would be less abrupt.

Leonard's heart flutters as he remembers his own encounter with Kirk. “Okay,” he says, wishing he had another drink and knowing now would be the time to make an admission of his own. It wasn’t—it sounds like it hadn’t meant the same thing for him that it had for them. It had been a special circumstance, boxed away rather than allowed free reign over his imagination. Jim, though, he’s got all the tension of a wire pulled taut, fraught with some emotion Leonard can’t pin down. It must not have been so simple for him.

“I kissed him,” Jim elaborates. Then, pulling at his ear, he adds, abashed, “he thanked me.”

“How very rude of him,” Leonard says, parsing the part of that confession he actually understands.

“You don’t have anything to say about it?”

“I don’t know, Jim,” Leonard admits. “It’s not a big deal, is it? Same thing happened to me.”

“You kissed him?” Jim says, and Leonard doesn’t want to say he sounds hopeful, but there’s a weird note in Jim’s voice that he’s only ever heard when Jim wants something.

Leonard shakes his head. “He kissed me. A friendly gesture on his part, I think. He was very friendly.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” Leonard says, plucking at the couch cushion. Then he looks up at Jim, unsure whether he should continue to speak. “It was nice.”

Jim smirks, but the gesture is hollow. “Nice, huh?”

“At the time I thought it would have been nicer with you,” Leonard says, getting the words out as quickly as possible before he loses this honest streak for good and forever. “Still think so actually.”

Jim smiles and as with all bright things Leonard can’t look away soon enough. “You do?”

“Yep.”

Jim leans into Leonard’s space, head tilted down to catch Leonard’s eyes. He slips his hand into one of Leonard’s. “Wanna know for sure?”

Leonard squeezes that hand and tugs Jim forward by it, following the same line of quick thinking that found him kissing Kirk, willing to take this chance now. Jim offers options to Leonard that Leonard would never have considered for himself. He makes a habit of expecting the impossible from Leonard. And the one thing Leonard has learned is it's always worked out just fine so far. “Is that what you want, Jim?”

“Yeah, Bones,” Jim says, his tone making it clear that this fact should be obvious.

Leonard traces Jim’s lower lip with the thumb of his unoccupied hand. “If you’re anywhere near as good as he is, we’ll get along.”

“That so?” Jim says, picking up Leonard’s challenge with devilish alacrity just like he's supposed to.

“Absolutely.”

“In that case, I think I can guarantee,” Jim says, lips mere inches from Leonard’s own, close enough that Jim’s breath ghosts across them, “that my kissing skills maintain a high quality across at least two universes.”

===

“I thought you said we were having dinner,” Leonard says as he walks into Jim’s apartment, confused to see three couches fill the living room almost to capacity. None of them match, like they’ve been pulled from different people’s homes. Now that Leonard thinks about it, he recognizes one of the couches as Uhura’s and the other as Sulu’s. They’re arranged in a semi-circle around a vid unit that’s too big to belong to Jim and must, in fact, belong to Chekov if Leonard remembers that one visit to Chekov’s quarters on the _Enterprise_ correctly.

“We are,” Jim says, shoving Leonard toward Jim’s couch in the center.

“So what’s all this?” he asks as he falls onto it. He pushes himself up into a more comfortable position in barely enough time to avoid tangling with Jim as he propels himself into Leonard’s side.

“Game night,” Jim says, “and dinner night. Thought we’d try combining the two for the young’uns. And Scotty.”

Leonard wiggles his fingers speculatively. “Sure that’s fair, Jim?” he asks.

“No, but it’ll be fun, right? And you’ll only ever get one shot at this before the whole crew knows. It's perfect. I’m thinking we should take bets.”

Leonard’s lip twitches in amusement. “What are we playing?”

“I dunno, some first person shooter,” Jim says dismissively.

Leonard smiles, sliding his hand over Jim's thigh to pat his knee with obnoxious condescension. “It’s okay, darlin’, I got this one.” Jim swats at him, then grabs his hand before he can withdraw it, capturing it between his fingers. Then he brings their hands up to his lips and plants a gallant kiss on the back of Leonard's. Jim likes doing that, making grand affectionate gestures. Leonard still hasn’t figured out whether it’s to put distance between him and the act itself or if Jim likes to express himself with flashy moves. Neither option would surprise him, but neither option bothers him either. So long as he’s never insincere about it, Leonard can live with his quirks.

“That’s the plan,” Jim says, rubbing his thumb back and forth over Leonard’s knuckles as Leonard fights the heat rising in his cheeks and an anatomically impossible shift somewhere in the vicinity of his heart. Before he can speak again, Jim adds, “I’ll talk a good game for you.”

There’s nothing in Leonard’s throat to swallow, but he tries anyway. “You always do,” Leonard manages after a moment, taken by the warmth of Jim’s palm fitted against his. He can only hope McCoy finds as much happiness in his own life, that Leonard hasn’t taken both their shares of it with the Jim sitting next to him.


End file.
